Most currently used woodwind instruments are usually cleaned by hand using a cloth swab attached to a string or shaft for removing moisture and reducing odors which may accumulate within the tubes of the various sections of an instrument. Typically, a swab with an attached string includes a small weight coupled to the string at an end thereof opposite the swab. To use the swab, the weight is dropped through the jointed sections of the tube of the instrument. The swab is then gently pulled through the instrument using the string thereby wiping the inner wall of the tube of the instrument with the swab. Depending on the application, the sections of the instrument may be cleaned together or individually.
Alternatively, a swab attached to an elongated shaft, such as the Flute Flag available through the Flute World Co. of Franklin, Mich., can be inserted into the tube of an instrument and rotated manually to clean the body, footjoint and headjoint of a flute or similar sections of another type of woodwind instrument. Other types of cleaning rods available define a slotted opening for receiving a swab and removably attaching the swab to the rod. The rod is then used for cleaning a flute or other type of woodwind instrument by manually inserting the rod and attached swab into the tube of the instrument to clean the inner wall of the tube.
One disadvantage of the above-described prior art cleaning tools is that these type of swab tools are manually operated and therefore time consuming to use. Usually, to properly clean an instrument, a cleaning process using a manually operated swab to wipe down the inner wall of the tube of an instrument may have to be repeated numerous times thereby extending the time required to clean the instrument.
Another disadvantage of the shaft type prior art cleaning tools described above, is that these tools are typically used with only one section of a woodwind instrument at a time such that this time consuming manual process is protracted by the number of sections of the instrument being cleaned.
Based on the foregoing, it is the general object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for cleaning the tube of a woodwind instrument that improves upon, or overcomes the problems and drawbacks associated with prior art cleaning tools.